


Both Waiting

by ineffablefool



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: (sort of a plot point? plenty of loving descriptors so you don't forget either way), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexual Relationship, Chubby Aziraphale (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love Confessions, Mutual Pining, No Sex, No Smut, Other, Pining, Post-Canon, i think light to medium angst?, they love each other so much but they're also a couple of walnuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:34:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22334260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ineffablefool/pseuds/ineffablefool
Summary: The tweed jacket has been Aziraphale’s around-the-shop wear for decades. It falls from the hanger now in lines which fold and drape just so, echoing the body it’s spent so many hours cradling.Stupid, for Crowley to be jealous of clothing. But he’s spent millennia longing to do what the jacket gets to do every day. Has he ever wrapped himself around the angel, filled his empty arms with all that soft bounty? Not once. Not bloody once.(Crowley puts on Aziraphale's shop jacket and pines. Then Aziraphale returns before he can put it back. Reactions are had.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 96
Kudos: 387
Collections: Aspec-friendly Good Omens





	Both Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome (or welcome back) to the Soft Zone(TM)! Today's story was actually written mostly back in September, based on a Tumblr post about couples wearing each other's clothing, which I had open for ages but appear to have lost now. Still. Some wearing of another's clothing (in an angstier setting than the original poster was thinking), some mutual pining, some tenderness. It all ends softly because, well, [points up to the start of this paragraph] I hope you enjoy it.
> 
> I'm writing for the TV characterization, but I've decided that my written Aziraphale is visibly fat. Tumblr and AO3 user Squeegeelicious has created [this absolutely gorgeous artwork](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for) for my human AU [If Not Now, When](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20936816), which should help you know what to visualize as you read! (This particular story also lightly features the extra-soft-armed Aziraphale originally seen [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21594439), because I felt like it. Hi Tumblr arms anon, if you're still out there!)

Aziraphale’s tweed jacket hangs by the door.

No surprise there; Crowley could tell before he even entered the shop that the angel wasn’t inside. The ethereal presence, soft and shining somewhere behind his eyes, is missing. Not an empty sort of missing, not like — like the fire. No. Still, it’s wandered off somewhere, for the moment, leaving the place empty. The well-maintained coat is gone, with the jacket left behind.

Crowley looks at it for a while.

It isn’t nearly so old as the coat, but it’s been Aziraphale’s around-the-shop wear for a number of decades at this point. It falls from the hanger now in lines which fold and drape just so, echoing the body it’s spent so many hours cradling. The broad expanse of back, the gentle curve of belly, the graceful shape of wide heavy arms: he can almost imagine them here in the flesh before him.

Stupid, to be jealous of clothing. But he’s spent millennia longing to do what it gets to do every day. Has he ever wrapped himself around the angel, filled his empty arms with all that soft bounty? Not once. Not bloody once.

Crowley is well aware of how inappropriate it would be to pull his best friend’s jacket down, press it to his face, and inhale the lingering trace of his best friend’s smell. He does it anyway. _All of you_ , he thinks, _I wish I could have all of you. Breathe you in whenever I wanted. Fall asleep to the sound of your heart. Could I touch your cheek, angel, and know it was welcomed? I’m waiting. I’ve waited. I’m here._

Tweed, of all things. He never would have fallen in love with Aziraphale if he’d known that he’d be the type to wear tweed once it was invented. (A lie. He was lost, could not have been anything but lost for Aziraphale. Give a flaming sword, get a blackened heart, apparently. Seems a poor trade.)

The jacket is much too big for Crowley. It’s cut to fit a body which is made for holding, for squeezing, for adoring every inch of. Crowley puts it on anyway. It bags strangely on his skinny frame, with none of the sweet soft padding needed to fill it out. But it’s soft too, in a different way. And it smells like Aziraphale. If he closes his eyes and breathes deep, he... well, he still can’t convince himself that it’s Aziraphale’s body against his, or Aziraphale’s arms draped over his shoulders. It’s still calming. Soothing.

Crowley wraps the front of the jacket around himself ( _so much of you, angel, there’s so much of you and I would treasure all of it_ ), walking around the shop floor. If wearing Aziraphale’s clothing is a little like being in his arms, then browsing the ancient stacks is a little like being in his mind — the Regency novels here, the antique atlases there, for some reason authors beginning with Q have been pulled out separate, and he has no idea what theme holds the shelves in the back corner together. He is very sure that Aziraphale could explain it all if he were here. Even if the explanation for the Qs was just “I thought it would annoy the customers”. The overall logic would be clever, and fussy, and Crowley would pretend to think it was ridiculous, even as he was adding it to his list of reasons for loving Aziraphale more than he can stand.

Aziraphale does not love him.

He’s let himself believe, now and then over the long years, that he might have had a chance. As long as they’d been enemies on paper — as long as they’d still had something to hide — he’d been able to hope. Of course Aziraphale couldn’t just fall into his arms in front of God and Satan both. Of course Crowley couldn’t cup that round chin in one hand and kiss Aziraphale as tenderly as he deserved. Not yet, anyway.

Then they’d made their stand at the airfield. In front of God and Satan both, not a declaration of love exactly, but a cutting of old ties all the same. Aziraphale had _held his hand_ on the bus to London. And since then... nothing.

Crowley has slowed, slowed. Everything else has stopped. Offers of dinner at increasingly romantic venues, and each one accepted like it’s routine. Putting his hand on the table, on the bench between them at the park, anywhere within reach, and it’s never taken. Aziraphale smiles at him, he _smiles_ like a flower unfurling toward its sun, but Crowley can only survive on smiles for so long. Even suns burn out.

He pulls the jacket closer around himself, even though he’s probably wrinkling it. Probably making it lose that perfect shape. He just wants to hold onto this tiny piece of Aziraphale a bit longer.

He is nowhere near the coat rack when he realizes the angel has returned.

* * *

The Bentley is parked outside the shop, which hurries Aziraphale’s steps just a little more. He wasn’t expecting Crowley today, except he somewhat was; these days, it’s rare they don’t spend time together two or three times a week. Today is the fourth day since that wonderful dinner at The Palomar.

He wonders, as he crosses the street, what Crowley has planned for today. St James’s, perhaps? It’s a good day for a walk, or even a picnic. Lunch at the new dim sum restaurant he’d apparently read about on the Internet? Dinner at one of their usual haunts?

Aziraphale tries not to wonder what Crowley might have planned for today on a more meaningful level. He has his answer in all that hasn’t happened since the night the world didn’t end. There on the bus, he’d taken Crowley’s hand, thumb brushing against the knuckles, sending a message he knew couldn’t be missed. _Have you waited? Are you waiting? I’m here_.

Crowley had accepted the gesture, at least; hadn’t returned his grasp, but hadn’t pulled away. That was all. The next move is his to make, and he still hasn’t made it, which makes the conclusion obvious.

Crowley does not love him.

It shouldn’t be as painful as it is, this knowledge, because Aziraphale has long been aware that they move at wildly different speeds. He’d just hoped he might someday be able to catch up. It seems now that he never will. Still, Crowley’s visit is always welcomed, and Aziraphale is already calling to him as he comes in and hangs up his coat.

“Crowley, dear fellow, I apologize for not being —”

His tweed jacket no longer hangs by the door.

Aziraphale has just enough time to register this, hand paused midway to pulling down the missing article, before he realizes that Crowley is visible at the end of a shelf. Not moving, and...

And wearing the jacket.

What can be seen of Crowley’s face bears an expression of vague panic.

“Aziraphale,” he says, and that’s all. He’s clutching the jacket around himself as if there’s a gale wind in here. There’s only the swirling motes of dust, though, and the two of them, staring at each other.

Crowley says it again, “Aziraphale,” in a voice so quiet that it’s almost lost in the larger silence. 

Aziraphale is still reaching for something that isn’t there. He drops his hand to his side. What does one say in a situation like this? “It’s hardly your style,” he tries. No, that doesn’t seem to quite cover it.

“I wanted t —” Crowley grimaces. “Never mind. Here.”

He extracts himself from the jacket — it’s enormous on him, honestly, he’s practically lost in it — then just stands there holding it. Looking at Aziraphale, still, although the panic has softened into something else.

“Do you think —”

Crowley cuts himself off again. He thrusts the jacket toward Aziraphale, but still doesn’t move from where he’s standing. “Sorry. Stupid of me. Just take it. It’s not mine, obviously it’s not mine, I don’t know what made me think I could —” That sentence isn’t finished, either.

At least Aziraphale has thought of something to say by now. “I don’t understand.”

Crowley tilts his head. “Do you know,” he says, voice unevenly stumbling from one syllable to the next. “It remembers you. Hanging up there, it’s empty, but it remembers when it wasn’t. Because it.”

Crowley’s mouth quivers, just for a moment. Aziraphale is sure of it.

“Because it’s held you,” Crowley finishes at last. “ _It_ has.”

The emphasis on that word is unmistakable. Aziraphale knows there must be a hundred, a thousand different ways to interpret what Crowley means by it, but he can think of only one, and it is impossible, it _is_ , after all these weeks and months of nothing it’s not possible for Crowley to actually be saying that he wants to hold him.

Oh, but the quiver in Crowley’s mouth. The way his initial panic at seeing Aziraphale has given way to something else, something yearning.

The way he can barely finish a sentence, but all of what he _can_ say revolves around wanting, needing, asking. If Aziraphale is right about the question being not-quite-asked, then the answer is _yes yes oh my darling yes now and forever yes_.

Aziraphale’s heart doesn’t need to beat this hard as he walks toward Crowley, but it may as well, he supposes. He’s only risking six thousand years of friendship on a hunch.

He stops barely two feet away. Turns away from Crowley, arms back a bit, looking around over his shoulder. “Would you...?”

Crowley takes a shuddering breath, audible in the quiet of the shop. Then he closes the distance between them. Slips the jacket up Aziraphale’s broad arms, over his rounded shoulders. It’s an unusual gesture already, his helping Aziraphale dress like this, and they both stop breathing when Crowley reaches around to smooth the lapels down Aziraphale’s chest.

Aziraphale very carefully leans back, tilting his head so it can almost be said to rest on Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley, meanwhile, leans forward, his hands gentle as they slide down Aziraphale’s front.

The jacket is an unbuttoned sort of thing, and it doesn’t really cover the area where Crowley’s hands have wandered. They both know, have to know by now that Crowley is not smoothing wrinkles out of a garment. Crowley is touching _Aziraphale_ , feeling the shape of him beneath his waistcoat, the way his body spreads and curves in ways Crowley’s never has. He is resting his hands against Aziraphale’s middle, and breathing, finally, they are both breathing again, because Aziraphale is covering those hands with his own, pressing them into his own soft flesh as if to say _Here. Yes. You belong here._

“Angel,” Crowley says against his neck, in tones too reverent for the holiest of cathedrals.

Aziraphale nods, because this is what he is. “Beloved,” he replies, because this is what Crowley is. When Crowley utters a tiny sound, pressing a kiss into the side of his neck, Aziraphale feels something unknot inside himself for the first time in decades.

“Tadfield. I thought — on the bus. Thought you were ready, then. Thought things would change. But they didn’t.”

Crowley’s hands have begun rubbing slow circles into the front of Aziraphale’s waistcoat. The sensation is so pleasant, so full of intimate affection, that at first he can’t respond in words — there’s just a shivering hum at the back of his throat. Crowley kisses his neck again and Aziraphale wonders whether angels can melt.

He finds his voice again, finally, and there are so many things he could say, things he has waited so long to be able to speak aloud. But that can come later. For now, there is an unspoken question in Crowley’s words. Aziraphale answers it.

* * *

Crowley can feel the deep breath that Aziraphale pulls into his lungs, his belly. It swells the round body in his arms even rounder for a moment before being let out in a rush.

“I was waiting for you.” Aziraphale’s voice is so tender that it hurts. Catches on something jagged in Crowley’s heart and pulls at it with terrible insistence. “I — I was ready, but... oh, my dearest, you didn’t...”

“I did.”

“I didn’t know.”

Crowley stops rubbing Aziraphale’s belly. Uses his hands, instead, to turn him around until they face each other, palms whispering over the flawless breadth of his waist.

He wraps himself around his angel. _His_ angel. His arms are no longer empty — they are filled, overflowing with all that soft bounty, and it’s everything he ever imagined. More than that, even. He’d never imagined how warm Aziraphale would be. He’d never dreamed Aziraphale’s heavy arms winding around his neck, pulling the two of them even closer together.

Aziraphale looks up at him with the same beautiful eyes that have stopped his heart for millennia. There’s something in them now that he’s never seen before, though. Or maybe he’s seen it but hasn’t let himself believe it.

“Perhaps we were both waiting,” he says, and his eyes are almost sad for a moment before they go brilliant with the force of his smile. “But I think there’s no need anymore.”

Crowley feels himself smiling too. Laughs, without even meaning to, and it’s a bright, shocked sound. “You do, then — just to, to be clear, to be absolutely sure —”

“Oh, darling,” Aziraphale sighs. “I _adore_ you.”

Something happens to Crowley, then, maybe his brain skipping a beat, because the next thing he knows, he is already covering Aziraphale’s face with kisses. His perfect nose, his forehead, the rounded shapes of cheek and chin and jaw — Crowley apparently can’t decide what needs his attention most, because he’s bouncing all over the place. Even when Aziraphale, laughing, tries to hide against Crowley’s shoulder, there’s still his pretty curls to kiss. There’s still all the precious width of him to hold, to squeeze. To refuse to ever let go of again, not for a hundred apocalypses, not for a thousand Ineffable Plans.

Aziraphale mumbles something against his shoulder.

“Yes, my angel?”

The arms around his neck clutch tighter, when Crowley says that. The entire soft body shivers. “I said,” Aziraphale replies quietly, “that I do hope you didn’t stop by just to try on my jacket.”

Crowley leans his cheek against the fluffy white hair. “Lunch. Came to ask you — lunch, with me. That new dim sum place.”

“Hmm,” Aziraphale says.

“Buy you one of everything on the menu if you like. Lots of little dumpling things. Probably delicious.”

“No doubt.”

Crowley closes his eyes, feeling the two of them swaying, a little. Slowly, back and forth. When he presses one more kiss against Aziraphale’s hair, he’s answered with a tiny sigh.

“Or we could just stay here a bit.”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale murmurs. “Could we — just stay like this? Just for a bit?”

Crowley’s arms are full of angel. Crowley’s heart is full of light. He has waited, but he is done waiting; Aziraphale loves him, and they’re both ready at last.

“Sure.” Crowley smiles into Aziraphale’s hair. “Long as you like, angel. I’m here.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you were thinking of leaving a comment, please know that I treasure every single one. I've literally cried a few times reading some of the lovely things people have said, and they really are fuel for my soft little heart -- but never, ever required, so please don't feel pressured. 
> 
> If you want to say hi on Tumblr, I'm [ineffablefool](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com) there, too.
> 
> I would never actively request art from anyone I wasn't paying, but if you, the human reading this, were to decide it was worth your time to create fanart based on any of my stories, I would be incredibly honored ([and would love to enshrine it forever on my Tumblr](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/tagged/ineffablefool-gets-fanart-from-lovely-people))! I have only one requirement: please don't draw Aziraphale any thinner than the size I headcanon (I need both my soft cuddly daydreams, and my positive fat representation). Here are some examples of what that sort of minimum body size/shape might look like: ([beautiful fanart created for me by Squeegeelicious](https://ineffablefool.tumblr.com/post/189282541139/squeegeelicious-a-walk-to-the-ritz-for)) ([speremint 1](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186342035100/i-did-this-instead-of-my-hw-ya-girl-is-gonna)) ([speremint 2 from her Reversed Omens AU](https://speremint.tumblr.com/post/186574829700/finally-finally-done-making-these-refs-my)) ([dotstronaut](https://dotstronaut.tumblr.com/post/186740069618/no-really-i-dont-think-you-all-understand-how)) Otherwise, the characters can look however you like!
> 
> I hope you're having a fantastic day.


End file.
